Cooking with Elsie

Gooey Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

Jars of cookies have a wonderful, homely, cosy quality to them. They’re like something out of a classic American film and make me want to curl up in my pjs under a blanket watching An Affair to Remember and Brief Encounter.

These are a classic cookie, extremely gooey, people will look askance as if to say are these undercooked but if you know Ben’s Cookies in Bath or Oxford then you will know that they are supposed to be gooey and sometimes supposed to slide down your face and this is all brilliant and delicious and they’re even better when they’re still warm.

These are super quick to make and the most efforty part of them is whisking the eggs with the sugar and with an electric whisk that takes mere minutes. I used white chocolate buttons as there weren’t any bars of white chocolate in the village shop this morning but I think broken up pieces of white chocolate might create a better colour effect.

You could also add orange zest, stem ginger chunks, currants or perhaps walnuts or pecans.

perfect with a glass of milk

Gooey Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

makes 16

30g plain flour

1 and a half tsp baking powder

100g milk chocolate roughly chopped

100g white chocolate roughly chopped

100g blanched hazelnuts

250g dark chocolate

2 medium free range eggs and 1 extra yolk

110g granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 180C and line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, nuts and milk and white chocolate.

Melt the dark chocolate over a bowl of boiling water or very gently in the microwave (I recommend doing this in 10 second bursts as burnt chocolate smells awful!). Remove and stir.

In a larger bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and fluffy and quite white in colour. Add the dry ingredients and pour in the chocolate.

Stir to combine and then spoon heaped tablespoons of the mixture on to your baking sheets.